NextUp Technologies Extends Relationship with Wizzard Software

PITTSBURGH - NextUp has extended their relationship with Wizzard Software and has selected ATandT Natural Voices Desktop edition for use in one of their assistive software applications, NextUp Talker™.  NextUp, a division of NextUp Technologies, LLC, supplies text-to-speech software to consumers, businesses, educators, and those with visual impairment or learning disabilities.

NextUp Talker is a text-to-speech application designed for people who have temporarily or permanently lost their voice.  Consumers are able to choose ATandT Natural Voices to add a speech engine that enables the user to communicate with others despite vocal impairments using a Windows PC or Tablet PC.  Those affected by Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrigs Disease), Cancer, Stroke, aphasia, or any other disability or affliction causing loss of speech, are able to use NextUp Talker to "talk."

NextUp Talker features shortcuts to enter commonly used sentences and phrases.  Users can enter their own individual phrases and special abbreviations as well, with the ability to adapt to the user's own style and speed and options to speak each word, each sentence, or each paragraph as typed or on demand.

NextUp also offers their customers other innovative applications with the option of using ATandT Natural Voices.  TextAloud™ speaks text such as Web pages, documents, emails, PDF documents and e-books aloud or to audio file.  NewsAloud™ is a talking personal "news agent" that finds the stories users want, and then reads them aloud or to portable MP3 files. WeatherAloud™ is a weather application that lets users select and listen to personalized weather forecasts, while StocksAloud™ reads stock updates and related news headlines aloud for specific companies of interest.

According to the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at John Hopkins, Lou Gehrig's Disease affects as many as 30,000 in the United States, with 5,000 new cases diagnosed each year. Aphasia, a total or partial loss of the ability to use words, currently affects about 1 million persons in the United States, with 80,000 more cases diagnosed every year, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.